(Content warning, discussions of SA and misogyny, mods I might mention politics a bit but I hope this can be taken outside the context of politics and understood as a discussion of basic human decency)

We all know how awful Reddit was when a user mentioned their gender. Immediate harassment, DMs, etc. It’s probably improved over the years? But still awful.

Until recently, Lemmy was the most progressive and supportive of basic human dignity of communities I had ever followed. I have always known this was a majority male platform, but I have been relatively pleased to see that positive expressions of masculinity have won out.

All of that changed with the recent “bear vs man” debacle. I saw women get shouted down just for expressing their stories of being sexually abused, repeatedly harassed, dogpiled, and brigaded with downvotes. Some of them held their ground, for which I am proud of them, but others I saw driven to delete their entire accounts, presumably not to return.

And I get it. The bear thing is controversial; we can all agree on this. But that should never have resulted in this level of toxicity!

I am hoping by making this post I can kind of bring awareness to this weakness, so that we can learn and grow as a community. We need to hold one another accountable for this, or the gender gap on this site is just going to get worse.

  • yuri@pawb.social
    2·
    6 months ago

    I commented about it and some guy replaced every instance of the word “men” in my post with “Jews” to prove to me that I am a bigot. His comment was removed by mods, but later un-removed because we’re big fans of bad faith arguments and invalid comparisons on this platform.

    e: argue this point with women in person and see how well it goes.

    • spujb@lemmy.cafeOP
      1·
      6 months ago

      I already see people running with the same rage bait shit again and this is not the place for it. As for you, thank you for sharing your experience and I am sorry it was greeted with such toxicity. :)

      For the rest of y’all, please see this and this comment which explains how this is a bad faith argument and be civil to one another.

      This post is about combating harrassment. If you absolutely must discuss the nuances of feminism in relation to xenophobia, I ask you to make a post elsewhere about it.

    • aStonedSanta@lemm.ee
      0·
      6 months ago

      I’m confused how that is a bad faith argument or comparison in anyway. They changed nothing about your commentary except for the group you were singling out. Lol.

      • yuri@pawb.social
        2·
        6 months ago

        Men are not a marginalized group. With the concerning amount of antisemitism becoming common in the US, it’s VERY bad faith to try comparing the perceived discrimination against a hypothetical man to the actual struggles of real people.

        • aStonedSanta@lemm.ee
          0·
          6 months ago

          Nah. It’s not bad faith at all. You are perceiving it that way due to external factors. But the truth of the matter is the same. Change it from Jews to Asian. Or any other group and I bet you’d never say it.

          So because you state “men are not a marginalized group”, men aren’t able to be used as a comparison as a group of people?

          Sounds like you are marginalizing men totally and are so sure of your “fact” that it clouds your judgement.

          • yuri@pawb.social
            2·
            6 months ago

            What the fuck ever dude, big apologies to all the men I offended. VERY glad I don’t know any of you clowns in real life. Good luck interacting with women.